Imprimis Pharmaceuticals Strengthens Senior Leadership Team with Key Hires in Operations, Quality, Manufacturing and Client Relations

SAN DIEGO, Aug. 15, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Imprimis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: IMMY), a pharmaceutical company dedicated to making drugs affordable again through its Branded Compounding™ business model, today reported the expansion of its leadership team with the appointments of Clayton Edwards as Senior Vice President of Operations, Eric Rice as Vice President of Client Relations, Pramod Sharma, PhD as Vice President of Quality, and Sanjay Samudre as Director of Manufacturing.

Mark L. Baum, CEO, stated, "I am pleased we have been able to attract these four strong executives to our senior management team during this pivotal stage in our plan for growth. Clayton, Eric, Pramod, and Sanjay are all veteran industry leaders, each with a record of excellence and accomplishment in driving growth and operational improvements for a range of successful pharmaceutical and healthcare companies. With the addition of these leaders who believe in the Imprimis mission, vision and values, we will have greater operational harmony as we safely increase production, dispense more efficiently and provide our valued customers with an exceptional experience."

As Senior Vice President of Operations, Clayton Edwards will oversee all pharmacy operations, including production, dispensing and customer service. Edwards is a healthcare executive with over 30 years of experience developing and operationalizing complex healthcare products and services. Prior to joining Imprimis, he was the Senior Vice President of Home Delivery Pharmacy and Prior Authorization for OptumRx, a UnitedHealthcare company, where he led an $18 billion P&L business segment, developing and improving traditional, specialty and compounding pharmacy, prior authorization, financial infrastructure, enterprise-wide information technology and robotic systems, and productivity improvement measures.  At OptumRx, Edwards grew the mail order pharmacy business to over 32 million prescriptions annually with six-sigma dispensing accuracy, directing a global staff of over 5,500 employees in pharmacy operations, prior authorization and appeals.  Edwards also led the development of a compounding formulary and network strategy for member pharmacies.  Earlier in his career, Edwards held various executive level positions at Doctor Diabetic Pharmacy/Sanare, Liberty Medical and Medco Health Solutions.  He actively serves on the Albany College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences Dean's Advisory Counsel, where he graduated with his Pharmacy degree.  He also has a Master's degree in Business Administration from St. Joseph's University.

Eric Rice brings over 20 years of experience managing customer contact centers of varying sizes. As Vice President of Client Relations, he assumes responsibility for implementing new processes to improve efficiencies with the ultimate goal of building Imprimis' customer service department into a center of excellence. Rice previously served as Vice-President of Philidor Rx Services, where he was responsible for the oversight of its call center operations.  In his two years in that role he oversaw department growth from 60 to 600+ professionals and built a center of excellence that supported a tenfold dispensing volume growth.  Previously, he served as Director, Strategy and Operation for Comcast Business Class.  Before joining Comcast, Rice received his start in contact centers during his 20-year career with Prudential.  Across that span, he held a variety of call center related positions, culminating with oversight of 20 call center departments across multiple locations.

Pramod Sharma, Vice President of Quality, has more than 15 years of quality assurance and quality control leadership skills, as well as laboratory management experience. He will oversee all Imprimis quality programs.  Included in these responsibilities are continuing to expand all Imprimis quality systems in line with the highest pharmaceutical and compounding industry standards. Prior to joining Imprimis, Sharma was the Senior Director of Research and Development Quality at Alvogen where he oversaw the quality production of sterile and non-sterile injectable, oral, topical, transdermal, and transmucosal drugs.  He also served as the Senior Director of Quality at Albany Molecular Research; and during 7 years at Akorn Inc., including as the Executive Director, Quality Compliance, he ensured successful adherence to cGMP requirements in multiple facilities, contributed to several successful NDA, ANDA and ANADA FDA submissions and represented Akorn in many FDA inspections of aseptic production processes.  Sharma received his Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Oklahoma and performed postdoctoral research at Stanford University and Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Sanjay Samudre, Imprimis' new Director of Manufacturing, has over two decades of pharmaceutical supply chain production management and operations experience. He will oversee supply chain and production while adding automation and scalability to many of the company's core compounded formulations. Prior to joining Imprimis, Samudre served as Director of Operations at Teligent Pharma (formerly IGI Labs) where he provided leadership in functional pharmaceutical areas including manufacturing, packaging, engineering, process improvements and supply chain.  He previously served as Plant Manager of Mediatech Inc., a division of Corning Life Sciences and as Production Manager at Qualitest Pharmaceuticals Inc., a subsidiary of Endo Health Solutions. Samudre also worked for Ciba Vision, the eye care unit of Novartis AG, as Production Manager to oversee manufacturing, filling and packaging operations. He has also held various positions with leading pharmaceutical companies Patheon, Apotex and Johnson and Johnson across Canada and India.  Samudre received a Degree in Pharmacy from the University of Pune India in 1994.

About Imprimis Pharmaceuticals

Imprimis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: IMMY) is a pharmaceutical company dedicated to making drugs affordable again through its Branded Compounding™ business model.  The company is focused on patient outcomes and affordability and offers high quality lower-cost custom compounded drugs in all 50 states.  Headquartered in San Diego, California, Imprimis owns and operates four dispensing facilities located in California, Texas, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. For more information about Imprimis, please visit the corporate website at www.ImprimisPharma.com. 

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any statements in this release that are not historical facts may be considered such "forward looking statements." Forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties which may cause results to differ materially and adversely from the statements contained herein. Some of the potential risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those predicted include our ability to make commercially available our compounded formulations and technologies in a timely manner or at all; physician interest in prescribing our formulations; risks related to our compounding pharmacy operations; our ability to enter into other strategic alliances, including arrangements with pharmacies, physicians and healthcare organizations for the development and distribution of our formulations; our ability to obtain intellectual property protection for our assets; our ability to accurately estimate our expenses and cash burn, and raise additional funds when necessary; risks related to research and development activities; the projected size of the potential market for our technologies and formulations; unexpected new data, safety and technical issues; regulatory and market developments impacting compounding pharmacies, outsourcing facilities and the pharmaceutical industry; competition; and market conditions. These and additional risks and uncertainties are more fully described in Imprimis' filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K and its Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. Such documents may be read free of charge on the SEC's web site at www.sec.gov. Undue reliance should not be placed on forward looking statements, which speak only as of the date they are made. Except as required by law, Imprimis undertakes no obligation to update any forward looking statements to reflect new information, events or circumstances after the date they are made, or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.

All Imprimis compounded formulations may only be prescribed pursuant to a physician prescription for an individually identified patient consistent with federal and state laws governing compounded drug formulations.

Investor Contact
Bonnie Ortega
[email protected]
858.704.4587                                                                                                                                         

Media Contact
Paul Rabin
[email protected] 
516.503.0271

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150108/167712LOGO

SOURCE Imprimis Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.ImprimisPharma.com